(Above, a clash of style and stance: Lyoto Machida’s karate and Shogun Rua’s Muay Thai)

Your fighting stance governs a great deal about how you fight.  All of your attacks will be influenced by it; your defensive structure is set by it. While there are many variations, there is a general sense of what is most useful and a majority of successful fighters only differ only 10-20% from it. Think of it like a steak.  Some people like medium-rare, others well-done.  If you were cooking for a large group (of carnivores, of course) and couldn’t individually serve them, you’d probably pick medium to medium well to best satisfy all. Serving rare steak or going with uncooked steak tar-tar would probably end poorly.

Below, a great, middle of the road stance (from local MMA instructor Brian Yamasaki) vs extremely low and impractical Shaolin kungfu stance.

I’ll call this middle of the road stance “the standard narrative”.  Remember, no one particular technique or stance is the 100% correct thing to do in all situations. Fighting is fluid and dynamic, but this standard narrative does a good job keeping in pace with all the places a fight can go.

Guarding the upper body

The main two concerns here are reducing damage to your vitals and allowing quick and powerful strikes. We’ll mainly focus on the defensive aspect, but the guard described here doesn’t really sacrifice much in terms of firepower for the benefit of great defense – one reason it so popular in MMA.

With protection in mind, your hands should to be held above your collar-bone,  your knuckles above your chin, protecting your face. Depending on your style, you can keep your knuckles at your temples (better defense), like you are answering the phone or even lowering them to the chin-level (better offense, riskier) to increase your speed of punching and relaxed shoulders.

Below, upper body high guards.

Here are some suitable relaxed lower guards with the arms.

In almost every case, you’ll want your elbows (chicken wings) to be down and in towards your body protecting your midsection. In the pictures above, many of the fighters are midway into a punch so their lead-hand elbow has drifted away from the standard position.

Especially for beginners, it is vital to keep the hands up and elbows tucked in even while punching, as it can save you from taking damage. Below right, Cain Velasquez’s high guard with the rear hand blocks his opponents punch while his punch lands flush.

Your chin should be tucked in towards your chest, “hiding” it and rooting your head to your torso.

When you are out of range of your opponent’s punches, your hands can drop slightly, but the standard narrative warns against it. This conserves some energy and allows for loose and fast punches as well as increasing takedown defense, but making your head more vulnerable to attack.

One other thing to consider – the tilt of your upper body.  Generally, you want your spine pointing straight up (chin tucked in) and only lean 5-15 degrees off vertical. When a fighter is bending at the hips past about 15 degrees, they are typically looking to wrestle (or defend it). Below left, Jose Aldo is tilting forward to be aggressive via strikes while Gray Maynard is tilting slightly away in defense.

Here, Tito Ortiz is looking to wrestle, his torso bent at about 30 degrees of vertical.

Advanced Considerations

When you are good enough, you can break any of these “rules” when the occasion calls for it. Below, Anderson Silva dropping his hands to Forest Griffin, then knocking him out. Lets be clear on this one. Silva uses superior knowledge of range to keep his opponents from hitting him, obviating the need to block. As one of the best fighters of all time, he is allowed to do what he pleases.  However, he does teach the standard narrative in his excellent DVD, Striking Combos for MMA.  He’s also got a book that goes over the basic stance – if you need a hard copy.

These are just a few of the major considerations – let me know what other things you think are important in comment section.

I believe this clip is from Pat Miletich’s Striking Strategies DVD or his Train to Fight and Win: Standup.

At length, I finally got what everyone was talking about.  My hope is that with a few visuals, beginning students don’t have to struggle like I did. My intention is give them some thinking tools to demystify groundfighting and the structures they see.  Below are two videos I shot in my spartan home-gym/dungeon while going over some wrestling with my friend John Ares. Certainly, I’m no a master, but I found this type of explanation to help me out a good deal.

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More to come.

Click through the pictures to see the videos.

Razor Rob shows how to nerf (obviate) the underhook when being pushed up against the cage and perform a sit-down takedown to get into side control.

Our local Brandon Ruiz shows some cage work defense with two techniques: a chest punch to get back your underhook and a slick two-on-one (controlling their two arms with one of yours) control to get your back off the cage.

UFC champ Frankie Edgar shows how to cut off the movement of your opponent and keep them on the cage with this drill.

Adam “Soul Horse” Song from Cageside MMA shows the proper base and pressuring technique to keep your opponent on the wall. He also demonstrates how to knee, footstomp, etc from this position. The discussion of how to base is brief, but essential.

Revolution MMA’s Joel Gerson shows a foot-sweep type move that exploits the opponent’s balance and base.

A couple of guys from ProFightNetwork show a knee catch takedown from the cage – keep that head tucked! – and then follow up with some excellent instruction on ground and pound.

Kenny Florian shows defense against ground and pound by securing a grip (two on one is great) and then wall walking back to his feet.  The move is related to a turkish getup.

Kevin Kearns (Burn with Kearns!) and Marcus Davis show a similar drill, the cage crush, that help you work getting back to your feet. Bosu ball used for resistance.

Another local man, Brian Yamasaki from DamageControl MMA has his wrestling buddy, Dave Seljestad show a single leg takedown when you’re pressing your opponent up to the cage.

Some guys from The Pit show various techniques in this long (12 mins) video instruction, including tips on finishing the double leg takedown while pushing your opponent onto the fence.

Brad Daddis shows how you can escape side control by walking your feet up the cage and rolling your opponent over. Pretty slick move.

Let me know if your thoughts – I learned a ton from these vids and would love to learn what you might have to offer too!

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The ABC’s of MMA has been a pet project of mine for quite some time. The idea was to construct a manageable curriculum for my students up at the U to be able to quickly gain their bearing in the sea of mixed martial arts techniques.  I worked with my instructors and friends to narrow down what I felt were the most basic and useful techniques in MMA. To accompany these techniques, I wanted to codify a variety of warmups and drills I used over the years that help condition the body and strengthen ability to do the moves.

Next, I wanted to systematize it in such a way that it was easy to remember, teach to and track progress on. In essence, the ABC’s of MMA are to help someone develop a workable vocabulary of fighting techniques and training drills. It’s not meant to be everything to everyone; I’m not a guru and don’t know all mastery points for the moves contained therein. However, I think you’ll find it a slick way to organize teaching and learning.

The format of the program defines the three main areas of MMA (striking, grapling and conditioning) and has 3 levels of difficultly for each area.  If a coach thinks X is more important to Y, it’s easy to adapt or insert parts into the 9-cell program.

Below are two PDFs that define  the curriculum and help you keep track of your personal progress. The intent of the checkoff list is for your instructor/coach/mentor to initial each block after you show proficiency.

Explanation of the ABCs of MMA program

Checkoff list for the ABCs of MMA

I’m currently working on fleshing out instructions for each individual move inside the ABCs.  I hope you find the approach laid out here to be useful. If you have any ideas or would like to help, let me know.

I’ve been watching Josh Barnett’s Attacking the guard, and coupled with something I read from SBGi’s Matt Thornton, I’ve been made a big believer in the department of submission prevention. Its the difference between having a fence on the cliff or an ambulance in the valley.  Practice shutting down submission techniques the moment the arise – it’s a good habit.  Waiting till the submission is set in is the equivalent of the college all-night cram session. Yes, you need to do it sometimes, but why not study attack the problem earlier? It’s a healthier, and more successful.

In this vein, I was thinking about the kimura and how to not let it happen.  Below are a few vids that touch on the “shut down as early as possible” theme.

Also check out Gene Simco’s technique (embedding was not allowed)  here.

Of course the real way to stop the kimura is to nerf the basing structure of your opponent and always maintain dominant grips – which is to say, stay in control.

I’d like to know your thoughts – how do *you* like to avoid the kimura and escape it if you get caught?

What you didn’t know, is that he was into mixed martial arts in the early days – he had Tapout bumper stickers on his carriages before it was cliche.  In consequence of his love for MMA, Newton postulated three fundamental laws of fighting, which his later works – laws of physics and thermodynamics – were built from.

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(Above, Newton is chilling with “the Iceman” Chuck Liddell; insiders state that Newton’s law of cooling played a large part in Chuck’s nickname.)

#1 Law of Inertia

A fighter in motion tends to stay in motion and a fighter at rest tends to get knocked out.

This law tells us to always be moving, cutting angles, circling.  It also hints at the fact that the more aggressive initiator is generally the winner in exchanges; it is easier and faster to act than to react.

When you stay up on your toes, keeping good head movement and shifting your guard hands slightly, you’re ready for anything.  Starting from a dead standstill takes extra energy – when you’re dancing, you’re nimble. Much easier to adapt while you’re moving; also, you’re harder to hit.

“Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. When a fighter is in a state of perpetual motion, he can seamlessly attack and move. Once he sits upon his heels, it takes energy to re-start the motion and overcome this sloth – such a fighter is likely to get KTFO’d.”    – Newton

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#2  Law of Power

Force = Mass x Acceleration

To hit hard and knock opponents out, you need to know how the classic equation F=MA.  While it may have been murder in Physics class, it will be your salvation in the ring.

The most straightforward observation from this law is that bigger is better; or rather, heavier (mass-ive) is better. Bigger fighters hit harder.  It behooves you to be at the top of your weight class than the bottom. You create more force just by having more mass.

The second observation is two-fold and relates to the generation of power punches and how you should train to create power punches. You want to have your body geometry down, so you can put as much “back-up mass” into punches and kicks.  Many refer this as “getting your body behind your punches.”  This helps out with the “mass” part of F=MA. For the acceleration part of the equation – you need to get that body mass up and moving… quick!

Please note the difference between velocity (speed) and acceleration.  A  distance runner might have a very fast top speed but it takes a while to achieve it; an Olympic sprinter can get to top speed in two breaths. The name of the game, when it comes to power generation, is acceleration.

Some things to check into if your interesting in developing that hard hitting power – plyometric training : jumping, medicine ball throws,  sprint starts; its all about accelerating.  Here are a couple of resources to get your started in that regard.

Beginner plyometric text:

Intermediate DVD+Book combo:

MMA specific plyometrics with Jens Pulver (upper body, lower body):

“Ladies and gentlemen – particularly the ladies – I will finally put to bed the debate if bigger is better. If one wants appropriate force, one needs to be massive. All fighters doth feel they know the root of force and power; I have only added structure and precision to their intuitive conjectures.” – Newton

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# Law of Response

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

For many, it is a natural response to push back after you’ve been pushed.  If you watch fighters on the cage, clinching, one will “discover” foot stomping and the other will follow suit thereafter. Fake low, get a response, go high – fakes/feints will get opponents to drop their guard and then you capitalize on their reaction.

No matter what you do, there is a response.  Typically, as mentioned above, you will try a tactic/move and your opponent will attempt to neutralize it with a counter.  It is uncommon to be able to get the first move, whether in striking or grappling. The first move is the set up to the next.

If you watched UFC 130, you saw Matt Hamill’s takedowns attempts get shut down repeatedly.  On thing that may have made them more successful would be to set the takedown up with a striking combination first; BJ Penn’s book calls this striking for the takedown.

“It is useful to consider how one’s actions are creating reactions in others -in fighting and in life. If you become successful, you invariably will attract haters. As thou knoweth, haters are going to hate; but it is ours to perpetrate; fist to face in the third degree. ”

* The classical scientist P4P rankings list Leonardo Da Vinci as #1,  Isaac “The Force” Newton as #2 and Gottfried Leibniz as a distant #24th.  Please don’t even start with that “Leibniz was the true inventor of calculus” crap. Seriously.

My success with the choke has been very dependant on the level of skill of my opponent and the time when I try to execute.  I spoke with Fusion assistant instructor Tony, and he told me how when you get pretty good at BJJ you don’t just catch guys out of the blue with your submissions. Its unlikely you’ll be hanging out in full guard and then slap on a triangle – you’ll find that you’re submitting guys when you are in the transitions from one move or position to another.

For this choke, I noticed that the top guy was trying to dawdling in their move into or from north/south or not really controlling my arms, I threw this on them.

Anyway, a fun move, and a decent arrow in your escape quiver.  It sort of reminds me of how Bas Rutten does his “double uppercut” side control escape.

Pretending you’re the blue dot, preparing to sweep the red triangle, you note that once you’re at the side, you can lift up the corner and topple over your opponent. Obviously there is more going on with the sweep, but we’ve reached my two-dimensional artistic limits; the video below goes over the main talking points for this sweep, including the one we stressed in class: scoot your butt to the side!

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In case that wasn’t enough, .you can follow  Stephen Kestings’ explanation of the butterfly sweep, with photographs!